Engages,

Eleanor Duffin A Phantom Limb

Eleanor Duffin
‘A Phantom Limb’

Streaming live: June 24, 7:00 PM

‘A Phantom Limb’, shown as part of the virtual program for Bus Projects, comes from Eleanor Duffin’s ongoing project ‘Phantoms of Form’, which takes as its central point the idea of the “other” woman. The protagonist is a female figure, who is occupied with material investigation and is a composite of a number of historical female artists and designers. She is a ghost, a shadow, she is there but not present. The life and designs of these figures are used in collaboration with Eleanor’s own work, and the project oscillates between auto and fan fiction.

This chapter of the project, titled ‘A Phantom Limb’, focuses on a series of letters written by Eleanor to the artist Barbara Hepworth, following a visit to Hepworth’s studio in October 2018. An interest in the garden as workspace, the relationship Hepworth developed with composer Priaulx Rainier and a curiosity in a bronze cast of the artists’ hand at the studio are documented and placed in parallel with Eleanor’s own personal narrative. The letters also detail Eleanor’s intrigue with the gaps or holes within Hepworth’s sculptures. Described by Hepworth as “concavities”, Eleanor’s interest here is with the action of subtraction of material in order to leave a gap, perhaps as a space for leaving room for things that can not be spoken or a space for the viewer to insert themselves in the narrative.

This video is an extract from an artist talk, given as part of the ongoing project Phantoms of Form, and is not to be viewed as a stand alone video work.